8.5 KiB
Wellspring: Legislature
The purpose of legislation:
Pripola bills
The category under which most legislation will fall is the Private Property Law Bill category (hereafter, Pripola bill).
The WS constitution already cements private property as the law of the polity. The purpose of laws passed by the legislature is merely make it clear to the polity how private property law (as defined in the "Principles" of this constitution) applies to particular actions, scenarios and innovations and thereby to extend private property's coverage to new phenomena. The goal of legislation is not to "create opportunity" or pursue "equality" or to "regulate".
A pripola bill must pass the Legislative Process in order to enter the body of adopted law.
Advisory standards bills
[Experimental:] If we keep Advisory standard bills, make sure to write an apologia for why they are useful.
A separate category of legislation, known as "Advisory Standards", exists to enable the legislature to recommend normative codes of behaviour to be optionally adopted by the private sector as policy for the management of externality-fraught enterprises and enterprises which are difficult to co-ordinate. Advisory Standard Bills must go through the same Legislative Process as Pripola bills in order to enter the body of Adopted Advisory Standards.
Technical consultation during the legislative process.
[Apologia]: In an ideal world, the legislature would not be filled with lawyers and non-technical people, but technical expertise does not confer an understanding of how to adapt legislation to that field of expertise. Instead experience has shown that political philosophers and lawyers, when brought up to speed with the technical particulars, can more readily fit those particulars into their political philosophy's model. Obviously the ideal politician is one who is both knowledgeable about law, economics and philosophy; and about the particular technical field s/he is attempting to legislate -- i.e, a technically experienced politician. However, since the norm is likely to be that non-technical politicians will be attempting to govern things they generally do not understand, the technical consultation is intended to bring them up to speed.
Before any nominated issue is judged for recognition, or before any bill which references an issue on record is considered by the legislature, the judging/voting members for the particular nominated issue or bill being considered before the legislature, shall be educated on the relevant technical details concerning the industry/issue under consideration by consultant experts, renowned in the field, both from academia and industry.
[Apologia]: There was a strong desire to give the industry consultants a greater weight in representation on the consultation panels, but as long as the government is not allowed to subsidize academia, there should be no reason to believe that academia will become a stronghold of anti-individualist ideology. It is up to the
WSresidents then, to ensure that they do not allow the government to subsidize schooling/academia. The claimable tax discounts on schooling specified elsewhere in this constitution should already go a long way toward ensuring an abundant supply of schooling so no politician should be able to make an argument that government subsidies are required to meet the demand for schooling/education.
Congress shall not have the power to proceed to judge the bill/nominated issue until the consultants are satisfied that 90% of the politicians judging the bill/nominated issue understand the specific scope and challenges comprising the issue. The consultants shall agree among themselves to prepare an exam or assessment or some other transparent, open criteria for determining whether or not the relevant politicians understand the issue. The consultants shall not weigh in on whether or not they approve of the policy solution to the technical issue and their syllabus and assessment criteria shall be confined to technical details, bearing in mind always that the consultants were not elected.
Should congress push legislation without consultation or without passing the consultant assessment, a cause of action at law, "Rash and Incompetent Legislation" shall avail itself to the people through the courts, even if the bill is not unconstitutional, and upon judgment proceeding against congress, the bill shall be unenforceable and stricken from the body of legislation; but no politician shall be outlawed, since the bill was not unconstitutional, but merely hastily passed.
The legislative process: Incentivizing individualist legislation
Nominating and possibly Recognizing an issue as requiring legislative attention.
When a new bill is to be crafted to address some issue, the issue must be one that was recognized through the nomination process. No bill may be passed into law unless it references an issue on record. Bills which do not address an issue on record shall be unceremoniously thrown out.
Nominating an issue
Logically distinct issues must be defined and nominated separately. Issues must be well defined in scope, and must clearly define the exact private property or co-ordination problem they describe. Congress may not proceed until the issue itself is clearly defined. When a new issue is defined and nominated, a Technical Consultation panel shall be assembled and commissioned to educate the legislature. The final vote/judgment to determine whether or not the nominated issue is recognized and entered into the Record of issues shall not occur until the legislature passes the consultation assessment criteria.
After the legislature passes the consultation assessment criteria, they may begin debating and considering the issue on its merits, and may proceed, after considering the nominated issue on its merits, to judge/vote on its recognition. It is intentional that the question of whether or not the subject of the nominated issue even constitutes a problem, will be central to the debate. A nominated issue may appear to be a problem, but upon closer examination show itself to be a non-issue, or it may already be addressed by some existing law or private sector mechanism.
Recognizing an issue
Upon being recognized as being an issue, the new issue will be entered into the Record of Issues, and is now called, an issue on record.
Addressing an issue
Ensuring that politicians are kept up to date on the issues they govern.
When a new bill is tabled before the legislature to address some issue on record, if the legislature has not taken technical consultation on that issue within the last 6 years, they shall be made to go through a new technical consultation process for that issue again, and to pass new consultation assessment criteria again in order to ensure that their understanding of the industry or technology they are attempting to govern, is current.
Tabling a bill
A bill may only be submitted to Congress if it references an issue on record, and explains how it plans to address that issue on record. Any law which is passed as a solution to an issue on record may be challenged at any time by a new bill. Only one act may control any issue on record at any given time.
Competing bills which address the same issue on record:
[TODO: Needs expansion and clarification]
When multiple bills contend in congress as solutions to the same referenced issue on record, the winning bill shall be that bill which preserves freedom the most, measured in the amount of redistribution, the amount of govt spending and the number of controls on movement, labour, thought, action and expression.
Reward to incentivize liberty-preserving legislation:
[TODO: Not sufficiently specific, could misconstrued and abused]
For the first bill passed to address an issue on record: The difference per annum between the least and most free of the competing bills, quantified monetarily, shall be awarded to the drafters, co-sponsors and voting adopters of the bill. Unconstitutional bills shall not be considered in the calculation, and they are subject to the normal outlawing process.
For a bill which replaces the current bill for a particular issue on record: When an existing law is replaced, an award of the same kind shall be granted to the new law's drafters, co-sponsors and voting adopters, with the difference calculated between the old law and the new.
The old block of awardees shall not lose their award. Any awardees who are sponsors of both the old and new bill shall retain the higher of the two awards only.